A Not Book-Review

I mentioned before that I have trouble writing anything decent. Sometimes that's just not enough to stop me writing.

That said, one topic I have always steered well clear of is reviews. Book reviews, film reviews, whatever. It's always been a difficult topic for me, and other than defending Twilight and Jade Goody, there's not much I feel I can offer people in the way of interesting book reviews, due to the nature of the literature I read.

This morning, my lecturer told me she was terrified of writing blogs, and asked if I'd ever had any negative feedback that made me second guess whether I want to post material online.

I replied that I had not, since I don't have enough content in the blogs for people to care enough about to criticise. I explained that I never feel a blog is a piece of work, as such. It's not a description, it's not a story, mainly it is a method for my mother to cyberstalk me and know what it is I'm getting up to. I also moan a lot, but that's because I don't have many people in real life who will listen to my rants.

I told her that I have a lot of problems in writing something real  because I worry that my lack of intellect holds me back. If I write something that I think sounds quite good, something with lots of wordiness and description, I worry that people who know me will think it's pretentious. On the other hand, I am not well-read and I believe here lies the heart of the problem.

Somehow, I have managed to avoid finding out the endings to many a great classic: Wuthering Heights being one. I have no idea what the book is about and even though a discussion took place on it in my lecture this morning, you have no idea how strong is my wonderful capacity to switch off.

I am still clueless as to what happens in the novel, and intend to stay that way until I have read it for myself. That said, I do fill with an immediate sense of panic everytime someone mentions it in case they give something essential away before I manage to zone out and think about other things. Food, for example.

For these reasons, I often feel somewhat uncomfortable when discussions of Favourite Books take place. When the discussion of Wuthering Heights took place this morning, I did in fact manage to trail my thoughts towards a website I'm particularly fond of, which shows Garfield comic strips, minus Garfield. The humour of this is that we realise what a lonely and distrubing man Jon Arkbuckle really is - and there lies the difficulty of the situation. How does one introduce the notion of Garfield comics to the discussion of favourite literature?

Now I know what you're all thinking; that's why you can't write, silly girl. You can't read for a start! And this is true. The beauty of the computer screen is that I can hide behind it of course, so here's my list of favourite "literature" for you all to enjoy.

Things that have Influenced Me
Garfield/Snoopy Comics (but Garfield is my fav :) )
Enid Blyton books, but I've never read the Famous Five (Another classic aptly avoided.)
His Dark Materials, Phillip Pullman. (This book introduced to me the notion of What if God is dead? Something that has struck a chord with me, and stayed for a very long time.)
The Game (Now that I have shared with you all my childish taste in books, I shall write a short review on this - my first book review!)
If this is a Man, Primo Levi - Getting into proper literature now, but it's ok, it will be followed with more comics, don't fear!
Belle De Jour (I'll probably write about this at some point too once I get the ball rolling)
Garden of Eden, Ernest Hemingway
Lord of the Flies, William Golding

And other than that there's not a great deal out there that has left a particular "Wow" chord with me. I'm a Twilight fan, but I wouldn't say it's influenced me in a literary way...

I'm just obsessed with Edward.

Which is a totally different thing.

I'm currently reading Catch-22, and I'm interested to see what I make of the book when I've finished. Maybe that one can be added to the list.

It's not to say that I haven't read any of the classics, or that I haven't enjoyed them! Just that at this point in my life they've not made me sit up and think about things in a huge way. They're not books I'd want to sit up and talk about in a discussion.

But I don't suppose Garfield would really hold his own in a debate either?